I might have given Colm T�ib�n�s novel, The Master, a bit of an uncalled-for kicking the other day, but I have to admit that his waspish criticism is very much worth reading. He seems to have a gift for showering his subjects with faint praise. Or lauding their achievements while demurring on one or two points�mildly bringing up caveats that actually make the whole enterprise seem a bit dubious. For example, reviewing Alan Hollinghurst�s The Line of Beauty in the New York Review of Books, T�ib�n remarks that�the author of The Swimming-Pool Library and The Folding Star has not given up his ambitions to have an old-fashioned plotline, with the tabloid press and lovers discovered and much else. I do not wish to give this plot away; it would have been better, I think, had the author done so, to the deserving poor perhaps In other words, the novel�s almost perfect but the plot�s an absolute shambles. Which is bit like saying the car drives like a dream although the missing steering wheel is a slight issue. Likewise, T�ib�n slides the stiletto in with a smile with his review of Christopher Hitchens�s book of selected journalism, Love, Poverty, and War in the New York Times� Sunday Book Review. Hitchens, whose choice of enemies can be idiosyncratic (Kissinger is a war criminal, whereas Rummy and co seem to be defensible), famously has a grudge against Mother Teresa of Calcutta (or Kolkota as we must probably soon start calling the city thanks to nationalistic BJP). T�ib�n neatly swots away Hitchens� campaign with the quip: ‘In Hitchens’s assaults on Mother Teresa, it was apparent that the storm had merely found its teacup.’This is good, but not quite as good as a jibe made by Christopher Ricks at the expense of TS Eliot, recounted in a profile that appeared in the Guardian Review. �one review did prompt TS Eliot to bring in the lawyers when Ricks said Eliot’s clearing Wyndham Lewis of having fascist sympathies was like the pot calling the kettle white. On a pedantic note, in a review in Saturday�s Irish Times of �The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy� by Conor O�Cleary, the following appeared: ��that despite its liberal reputation, the Times is sometimes a shrill for American foreign policy�� It�s not shrill, it�s shill. These things irrationally irk me–sad, I know. But I wonder if a sub-editor on the deeply flawed New York Times would let that pass?